Paul Goble
Staunton, September 7 – Despite the Russian government’s reluctance to talk about the genocide its tsarist predecessors committed against the Circassians in 1864, a new pamphlet prepared for guides for the Olympiad next year specified that the Circassians are "the indigenous population” of Sochi and that Sochi and many nearby names are Circassian words.
In his "Olympic Names of Sochi” (in Russian), which has been published in 1500 copies, Igor Sizov, a journalist there, says that everyone should remember that "the majority of geographic names in Sochi have arisen as a result of a mixingof lnguages, customs and cultural traditions of various peoples.”
"The terms ‘Sochi,’ ‘Laura,’ and ‘Fisht,’” for example, were given by "representatives of the Circassian tribes of the Abaza, Ubykhs, and Shapsugs.” The name ‘Adler’ "appeared thanks to a mixing of words from Circassian ...
